Acquiesce
by katjen
Summary: Rath.


Title: Acquiesce 

Author: Katjen 

Rating: R (language)

Disclaimer: Me no own. You no sue, okay?

****

Sometimes I ride the trains. All night long I ride em when I get bored a' fuckin' Lonnie or when I can't take Zan's shit no more. Ava don't bug me too much cuz she don't talk. It's a good thing she's one a' us or she'd be _gone_. She knows it too. She wouldn't be no freak if it wadn't for us. I can see her all fancied up, livin' with some rich family in a dope house on L.I. That's where'd she be if she hadn't been hatched like us, born into the piss and dirt of an abandoned subway tunnel. Home sweet fuckin' home 

I think even if I was human I'd still be livin' here. 

It's a good time y'know? No rules, no adults. Just fun. Fun and freedom and sex. We steal what we need and we steal what we don't need. It gets borin' sometimes but what else is there? We sittin' around waiting for something better but who knows if there _is_ anything better? For all we know we was aborted from the home planet on purpose, kicked to the curb and left to die. I have a feelin' we ain't nothing special there, but we are here. Here, we got power. We got all the power and we know how to use it. 

The first time it happened it was a fuckin' rush. Right from my head, down my arm and out my hand. I blew a hole in the wall. If Zan hadn't a' ducked outta the way he'd a' been toast. 

__

That's what you get for pissin' me off, man 

I was the first to get em. Zan was fuckin' green, but Lonnie was cold. She asked me questions, she watched me do it and then one day she did it too. She rebuilt the hole I'd made without getting up from bed. Waved her hand over it and it was done and then she climbed back on top a' me. 

You ask me, Zan ain't the man, never was and never will be. The only thing he got is brains. He's smarter than me, but Lonnie's smarter than alla us so where does that leave him? 

And Ava She don't do nothing but follow Zan, but far as I know she ain't givin' it up to him. Zan spends a lot a time alone in the tunnels. 

I myself don't have that problem. Me an Lonnie been takin' care of each other's business so long I don't remember life before her body moving under mine, on toppa mine, her nails scratching up my back 

But that gets tired sometimes. So I ride the trains, back and forth, all night long, all day long. I look at the humans. I watch them get off and on, sit down stand up. They all look the same you know? 

When they look at me, they look away real fast. Even the punks're afraid a' me. 

It feels damn good. 

I sit there and I feel invincible, I feel like a king. I like the noise and I like the heat. I like the dirt and the sweat. It's my own planet where I rule. I let them ride my train, I let them get off. I took Lonnie once and tried to explain it to her but she didn't get it. She got bored and worked it for one of the wannabe punks and took his wallet. Asshole didn't know what hit him. You shoulda seen his face when he realized it was gone just as the doors closed. It was a trip, but I like it better when we don't do nothin' to them, just sit back and watch. I never hadda TV but I don't think it could compare to this — real life, real sweat and blood and stink, real people, real poor people and real rich people standing side by side packed in so tight they gotta feel each other up. The subway's where everyone mixes it. For that two-minute ride to the next stop everyone has to look at each other. The guy who lives in a box and smells like shit can stand next to the woman who wears diamond earrings and smells like roses in the middle a' winter and there ain't nothing either of them can do about it. It's fuckin' beautiful 

I sit and I watch people try and ignore each other. I watch them ignore the panhandlers, the deaf kid handing out pencils and key chains, the guy who preaches about Jesus for exactly two stops, shuts up for two stops, then starts again for two more. They try and act like they don't hear, like they don't see but you know they do. They tense up. They concentrate on their book or magazine and read the same page over and over again until the kid takes his pencil back, the guy with his dirty hat out puts it back on his head, and the preacher sits down for two stops. 

It's almost comforting how predictable it is.

But sometimes there're surprises. One time there was these two kids with a boom box just going at it, throwin' out rhymes faster than you could catch em' and when they were done this suit gets up from his seat and offers them a deal just like that. Another time there was this chick who was doing the book thing — y'know hiding behind it like that'd protect her from alla us freaks, and this other chick comes on lookin' exactly like her. Like twins n' shit. They just stared. Guess they didn't know about each other. 

I sat there after they left together cryin' and huggin' each other and I wondered what that would be like just sittin' on the train mindin' your own business and then the doors slide open and bang, there's two a' you lookin' back at each other. It's wack 

****

I had been on the train for an hour before she came on. I saw her legs first. Long legs in boots laced up to her knees and a plaid skirt rolled up at the waist makin' it shorter than it's sposed ta be. Classic good girl tryin' to be bad. She disappeared in the crowd tryin' to push it's way out and when I saw her again she was sittin' across from me, down a little bit. She was lookin' out the window, slumped down in the seat lookin' as badass as a Catholic schoolgirl can and I stared at her. It's a game and I always win. She'll feel me. She'll look up and I'll catch it in her eyes right before she looks away. 

Fear. 

I'll keep starin' and she'll spend the rest of her ride tryin' to avoid lookin' up. No one ever looks up. It's something I can depend on, like Zan bein' an asshole. 

She looks up. She meets my eyes. Hers are gray, gray like storm clouds and she don't look down, she don't look away from me. She stares right back. No one ever stares back. 

I don't know how long we was sittin' there across from each other. It coulda been one stop, it coulda been ten. She didn't look afraid a' me. I didn't know what the fuck to do with that. I didn't know how to win if she wadn't afraid a' me, if she didn't look down. 

A crowd a' people came in and stood between us and when they moved she was gone. I turned and looked out the window, trying to find her outside but nothin'. 

My heart was beatin' too hard. 

She had red hair. Long and wavy like Lonnie's used ta be before she hacked it off. I wondered what it felt like. My hands started to itch and I shoved em in my pockets. We don't hang with humans. We steal from their stores. We ride their trains. We walk down their streets. We stare at them until they look away. We don't hang with them. We don't want to. 

She didn't look away. 

I almost did. Twice. That is not supposed to happen. That never happens. 

She disappeared before I wanted her to. I wanted to look at her some more. I was still thinkin' about her three hours later when I finally decided to go home. 

It don't make no sense I see hundreds of humans every day and even the ones I really look at, the ones that kinda stand out a little, I forget the second they're gone. I don't give a shit about them. Their faces pass the time, make the ride a little more interestin'. It's not like I care f'I'm never gonna see any of them again. 

She didn't look away. 

"Ava — yo." I caught up to her at the edge of the tunnel. She turned around to look at me and I knew she was thinkin' about runnin' as fast as she could the rest a' the way to our crib where Zan's prob'ly waitin'. 

I scare her. 

We known each other since we was born and she's scared a' me. She tries not to show it but I know. She tenses up like people on the train do when I sit next to them. 

"Yo, where you been at?" 

"Around. I need a favor. That dinner?" I took the bag she was holdin' and dug around inside. I tossed it back to her after pullin' out a couple bagels. 

"Don't take the one with the tomatoes... that's for Zan." I took a bite outta it and rolled my eyes. 

"He'll live." I mumbled around the tomato bagel and nudged her shoulder with mine. "So you gonna do me the favor or what?" 

She smiled. She likes when I ask her to do stuff for me. It's that whole eager ta please thing — she does it with Lonnie too. 

She does everything Lonnie tells her to do. 

"What is it?" 

"You can do that dream walkin' shit right?" 

"Yeah, but Lonnie's better Why don't you ask her?" 

"Cuz I'm askin' you." She paused and tugged on the end of her hair. She does that a lot. I reached out to her and she flinched. I squinted at her. 

"You think I'm gonna hurtchu?" She stared at me thinkin' about it then slowly shook her head. I reached out again and waved my hand over her white hair. I shoved her in front a' the piece a' broken mirror leaning against the tunnel wall facin' our crib. We put it there so we can see anyone comin' before they get too close to the place. 

She looked at herself and touched the black and pink streaks I put in her hair. I tore off another piece of the bagel with my teeth and chewed like I hadn't eaten in days. 

"It's dope. Zan'll like it." 

She looked at my reflection above hers and smiled at me before turnin' around. "Okay, I'll do it." 

I followed her down our tunnel and she dropped the sack of bagels on the table in front of the couch. She sat down on it and I plopped down beside her. "You gotta picture?" I tapped the side of my head and leaned in towards her. 

"It's in here. Zan and Lonnie ain't around?" She shook her head and reached out towards my face. I grabbed her hand before she could touch me, my fingers wrapping completely around her wrist. 

"You get in and you get out, got it?" She nodded and I let go a' her. She reached out again, touching my forehead with her fingers. I sent her the image of the girl with the red hair and the storm cloud eyes. Once I felt her touch it I kicked her out. 

"You got it?" 

"Yeah." She laid back on the couch. I picked her legs up by her knees and dropped them across my lap. She closed her eyes and I rested a hand on her knee waitin'. 

The train was empty. She sat there alone. I motioned to Ava to stay back and I went to sit beside her. I didn't want her to see me yet so I didn't say nothin', didn't touch her. The doors slid open and she stood up. 

I was in the doorway. 

A different me, but me. Piercing's, mohawk, chains and leather — the whole bit. I coulda been lookin' at my twin. She went to the other me and kissed me. Hard. I was touching her everywhere, my hands sliding up her thighs under that little skirt, her legs coming up around my waist. We fell back against the seat where I was sittin'. I was kissin' her neck and her face was turned toward me, the real me, her eyes closed as the other me tugged on her hair, tangling it around my fingers, touchin' it like I'd wanted to before. I was almost fuckin' jealous of myself. 

I heard my voice mumble sumthin' against her neck. 

Cameron. 

She opened her eyes and stared into mine. The other Rath disappeared. Her shirt was unbuttoned. It looked like she had a tattoo over her heart. I reached out to move the material away to see better, but before I could touch her I felt myself being yanked back, yanked out of the dream. 

I sat there for a few minutes, squeezin' Ava's knee so hard I was sure I'd have marks on my palm from her fishnets. I looked over at her and she didn't say nothin', she just stared at me. I let go of her knee and she rubbed it. I shoved her legs offa me and got up, pacing cause I thought I'd explode. 

"You wanna be alone Rath?" She smirked and stretched out on the couch again. 

She'd had a dream about me. A sex dream. A fuckin' hot sex dream. About me. 

"So's she what you were doin' all day?" 

"Shut up Ava." She blinked at me but I know it wadn't cuz I hurt her feelin's. I was bein' too defensive. I've done human chicks before, never been shy about shootin' my mouth off about it. This was different. I dunno why it was but it was. 

Cuz I hadn't touched her, hadn't done anythin' but stare at her and she was dreamin' about me the way I knew I'd be dreamin' about her tonight. 

It gave me a rush like usin' my powers for the first time hotness all through my body like fire in my blood, in my veins. I never cared before that a chick liked me back. I come onto em, fuck em, then go back ta Lonnie because it's never enough. Lonnie does the same thing and she always comes back too. 

But this felt different. Just the thought of her was getting' me hot 

It was dangerous. 

I liked it. 

"Don't say nothin' to nobody about that." She looked at me, but she didn't look afraid no more. I took a step toward her, and she shrugged, pickin' up the bag and pullin' outta bagel. She picked a raisin offa it and I decided to leave her alone. Ava wouldn't do nuthin'. She never did. 

I turned to go to my "room" and heard Ava call softly after me, "Thanks for my hair Rath" I grunted a whatever at her and flopped down on my mattress starin' up at the cobwebs and dirt and wishin' to hell I knew how to dream walk by myself. 

****

I don't know how long I laid there fore Lonnie came in. I felt her in the room before I opened my eyes and when I did she was standin' there lookin' up at me from under her eyelashes, her lips curvin' into a smile that can make some guys lose it right there, cuz it means she wants you, it means she's got an itch and she wants you ta scratch it. She climbed onto the mattress and slithered up my body, unzippin' my pants and tearing open my shirt as she licked her way up my chest. 

Lonnie bites. Just hard enough to let me know she's in charge. Most a' the time it turns me on, but none a' that was doin' anythin' for me right then. I wanted her to go away. 

"Get offa me" I mumbled as she sunk her teeth into my shoulder. 

"Get off on you?" She licked the spot she had bit. "I'm tryin' lover" I flipped her over on her back and she looked up at me, her eyes flashing. Pissin' Lonnie off is dangerous. We all know it. I didn't care. 

"I ain't playin'." 

"Since when do you get to decide when we play?" She shoved me off and got on toppa me again. But she wadn't messin' around now. Her hand closed around my throat and she brought her face down to me so close her lips brushed mine when she spoke. "You wanna do that chick, do her — you have my permission, but when you come back like you always do, you better be prepared to do some serious groveling" She kissed me once, sucking my lower lip into her mouth before sliding down my body, off my bed, her nails raking down my chest and over my hips before she finally left me alone. 

Ava fuckin' told. I shoulda known 

I vaulted off the bed and stalked down the tunnel to the main room. Ava and Zan were on the couch on toppa each other. I dunno where Lonnie went. I got a sick feelin' in my stomach, but there wadn't nothin' I could do. 

I sat down across from them and picked up the bagel in front a' me. I wadn't hungry but it looked funny. Half a' it was raisin, and the other half tomato. I stared at it, listenin' to Ava giggling and Zan's heavy breathin'. 

Right then, starin' at that raisin bagel that Ava had changed into a tomato one for Zan, listenin' to them feel each other up, listenin' to Ava's breathless I love you's... I felt alone. For the first time I felt alone, and not a part of anythin' or anybody. 

I didn't know Zan. I didn't know Lonnie. I didn't know Ava. I didn't even like em. We was just together because we was supposed ta be. Because our "protector" had told us that the only thing we could depend on was each other, and that the only way we was ever gonna leave this wretched planet was if we stayed together. That fucker left us years ago. Lonnie and Zan and me had long since stopped believin' in any of the shit he had told us, but Ava had clung to it, and she still does. She moans Zan's name and she tells him she loves him like she really knows what that is, like it comes from her instead of some stranger's babblin's of what was and what will be. Some stranger who left us alone to rot in this hell hole. 

She don't wanna be alone so she's holdin' onto Zan when he ain't really hers. It ain't fair a' me to get mad at her for it, because every time I climb back into Lonnie I'm doin' the same thing. 

I never wondered before what it'd be like if we weren't who we are. If we was normal, human. There never seemed to be no point to it, but sittin' there and listenin to Ava whisper the protector's words inta Zan's ear, I hadta wonder if she woulda still wanted Zan so much if she had never been told she was supposed to. I hadta wonder, would Lonnie a' let me touch her and would I even a' wanted to if I hadn't been told the same thing? Aside from amazin' sex we don't give each other nothin' but headaches.

I'm sick a' it. I'm sick a' fuckin' Lonnie because I don't know what else to do. I'm sick a' buttin' heads with Zan because I'm just as frustrated as he is that nothin's changin', that nothin'll ever change. I'm sick a' wishin' things would change because when they don't I feel like an asshole for wantin' more than I know I'm gonna get. 

I got up and I walked away from it. I didn't even look up at the pods stuck there in the wall torn open and still glowin' a little, like it was just yesterday when we busted out. I can't breathe down here no more, I don't know how I ever did. 

**** 

I went to Central Park and laid down on the grass. 

I laid there and I stared up at the stars and I didn't feel nothin'. I couldn't see that many cuz a' alla the shit in the air, but the ones I could see were small and faint and unimpressive. 

Maybe one a' them was mine. One of them shitty little city stars was mine. I wondered if people would be scared a' me up there. I wondered if I'd want them to be. 

I don't care what it's like. I don't care if they don't want us there, if we was kicked out, I want back in. 

I got up and I started walkin'. I didn't know where I was goin' and I didn't care. I didn't wanna go back and look at Zan and Ava. I didn't wanna look at Lonnie. I wanted to stare at Cameron. 

I turned a corner and she was there. In the middle of the fuckin' night in one big fuckin' city I found her. The girl with the red hair and the storm cloud eyes. She was dressed different, jeans and a T-shirt, her hair was up, some of it fallin' down and I remembered I'd never really gotten to touch it, touch her. She was all alone. Why the fuck was she alone? I was mad at her for bein' so stupid. It's okay if I'm out here by myself — there ain't nothin' nobody can do to me. I don't care how tough she thinks she is, it ain't safe for a chick to be out here at night. 

She started walking and I followed her. I told myself I was just doin' it to make sure she got to wherever she was goin' okay. I didn't call out to her, I couldn't think a' anythin' to say. You'd think it woulda been easy to just go up ta' her I knew she was interested, I saw the dream, I saw what she wanted to do to me, and I definitely wanted to do it too, wanted to make it real. But I didn't say nothin'. 

She lost me after four blocks. 

I blinked and she was just gone. Like before. 

I stood there lookin' around me seein' nothin' but the dark, and that feelin' of bein' alone and separate hit me again. I told myself I was glad I hadn't worked up the guts ta talk to her before I'd lost her. I told myself that she was just another stupid human and that I had better things to do than follow her around and feel awkward and turned on and confused and pissed off cause I kept fuckin' losin' her. 

****

I went home. I didn't have no where else ta go. It was stupid to go stormin' out like I wadn't comin' back. Not like anyone'd noticed I had 

No one was there. The place was empty. 

I picked up my hockey stick and started slammin' anythin' I could find on the floor against the wall, tryin' to aim for anythin' that'd break. 

I saw somethin' movin' outta the corner of my eye in the mirror we'd set up. I turned my head ta look and I almost dropped my stick. 

I saw her in the dirty mirror, slowly coming towards the opening of our tunnel. I didn't run. I didn't do anythin'. I stood there and waited for her to come ta me. 

She paused when she saw me, like she wadn't sure if she should keep comin' or not. I turned so I was facin' her, keepin' my eyes on hers and just like the first time she didn't look away. She came up ta me so close I could feel her breath on my knuckles as my fist clenched around the hockey stick I was still holdin' onto. 

"What're you doin' here?" I mumbled wishin' I sounded more tough, wishin' she wouldn't look at me the way she was lookin' at me. No one'd ever looked at me like that and I didn't know what to do about it. I wanted to grab her and hold her to me, make her mine cause nothin' worthwhile was on this fuckin' planet, but I didn't. I didn't want it ta be like that... I didn't wanna hurt her. Her voice was soft when she answered, soft and deep and I wanted to touch her like that softly, deeply... 

"What, you can follow me but I can't follow you?" 

"You knew?" 

"I knew." 

She put her hand over mine on the stick, smilin' a little smile that was almost too shy for the act she was tryin' to keep up, for the game we were playin'. 

"Who are you?" I whispered.

"Cameron." She looked up at me with those eyes, those silver gray eyes and they asked me what my name was. 

"Rath." 

"That a first name or a last?" I grinned at her. 

"It matter?" She looked down at her hand on toppa mine and let it go. She stepped back a little and pushed her red hair behind her ears. 

"II've never done this before" She flushed, stammerin', "I mean... I've never followed a guy before to his..." She looked around at our makeshift livin' room, then back up at me, confused. "You live here?"

The place was a mess. It was a shit hole anyway but it was worse than it usually was and I was ashamed of it. Never mind the fact it was in a fuckin' abandoned subway tunnel. 

"Yeah." I muttered, darin' her to make somthin' of it. She probably had money. She probably lived in a real house. I looked at her, at her clean clothes and the silver hoop earrings shining through her hair and I wondered what the fuck she was doin' here in the middle of the night with a guy like me. 

"Why'd you follow me?" 

She swallowed steppin' in a little closer again.

"Why'd you follow me?" 

"Why didn't you look away?" 

"Why didn't you?" 

I gave her a look and she touched my hand again and I felt it all the way up my arm and to my brain, like an electrical charge, a pulse pounding through my body. I'd never felt that with a human before.

She took the stick outta my hand and leaned it against the wall, nothin' between us anymore and she came up ta me, put her hands on my chest as she leaned forward and answered me with a whisper, her lips brushing against my ear, "Cause you didn't want me to." 

She kissed my cheek, and I touched her arm, wrapped my hand around it, pullin' her to me. Gently. I've never done anythin' "gentle" in my life. She wadn't the way I thought she'd be she wadn't the way she was in her dream. She was slow and hesitant, and I liked it. I ran my fingers through her hair and it was silky, it fell through my touches like water and it smelled good. 

I cupped her face in my hands, my big dirty awkward hands that have never been good for nothin' but smashing and hitting and blowin' up shit. I held her face in my hands and I didn't hurt her, I tilted her chin up ta me and I kissed her. Slow and soft at first then harder, crushing my mouth against hers breathin' her in and her hands were on me touchin' me everywhere.

I felt on fire. I felt my power rushin' through me and I thought I was gonna explode. She made a noise against my mouth and I pulled away ta look at her, expectin' her ta laugh, expectin' her ta walk away. Expectin' her ta go home and tell her rich boyfriend she had made out with a punk, turned him on and turned him down cause she could, cause he wanted her so much he had been willin' ta risk it. 

She had blood on her mouth. My ring had cut her. I rubbed my thumb against it, turning it silver, making it better and she closed her eyes. I took the hoop outta my lip and shoved it into my pocket, catching the end of her T-shirt on the way back up and pullin' it up and over her head. I traced the tattoo over her heart with my tongue, followed the V of stars down and then up to the hollow of her throat as she moaned my name and we sank to the dirty floor, her hands pushing their way up and under my shirt, her short nails raking across my skin making me groan. She nipped at my neck as she unbuttoned my pants, bit me harder as I undid hers. 

I was breathless and I loved it. I was out of control and I loved it. I didn't belong and I loved it. 

I opened my eyes as she kissed me, and her eyes were brown and smoldering and I reached up and I touched her face, ran my fingers through her short blond hair wild with sweat and my touches. 

"I like you as a red head" I murmured and she grinned. Another kiss, slower, deeper, almost tender. I wonder about Lonnie sometimes. 

"You like me any way you can get me." I flipped her over so I was on toppa her and I buried my face in her neck. She held onta me so tight I knew I wadn't ever gonna be alone and whispered in my ear, "Don't forget lover, it's your turn tomorrow" 

End 


End file.
